“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Haile Selassie

Friday, February 28, 2014

The Indy Eleven soccer team would
generate just $2 million to $4 million a year in ticket sales, a
fraction of the $51 million
that owner Ersal Ozdemir has estimated a
new downtown stadium would generate including non-soccer events,
according to an
independent analysis by the Legislative
Services Agency.

...

Ozdemir has said the stadium would
generate $5.1 million in ticket taxes. At a tax rate of
10 percent,
that’s $51 million
in revenue. Ozdemir’s estimate includes
other events, while the LSA’s analysis considered only soccer.

“There’s no way on earth you could get $5
million a year in ticket taxes from a minor-league soccer franchise
even with concerts and other events,” said
Neil deMause, the Brooklyn-based author behind the Field of Schemes
book
and blog.

DeMause noted the average Major League
Soccer franchise—a step above the Indy Eleven—does about $8 million per
year in ticket sales.

“It baffles me where they came up with that number," he said.

...

To reach $5.1 million in ticket-tax revenue, the venue would have to
sell in tickets alone more than four times the total revenue of the Indianapolis Indians. The
well-established Indians reported a record $11.8 million in revenue in
2013, including tickets and concessions.

So Ozdemir overestimated revenue by 20 times the likely figure in order to put taxpayers on the hook for his new downtown soccer stadium? As incredibly bad as that deal would be, it would still be better than the Broad Ripple Parking Garage/Commercial Center, built for with taxpayer dollars and simply given away to Ozdemir's company Keystone Construction.

Matthew Tully

Of course our resident political columnist Matt Tully, who has proved to be a shill for every corporate welfare proposal ever pushed by the Ballard administration, supported the Broad Ripple Parking Garage development and recently pronounced the Indy Eleven stadium idea as good for taxpayers:

Not all corporate tax breaks are created equal, and it is important
to note that the one being proposed to help finance a stadium for the
city’s new professional soccer team, Indy Eleven, is not some sort of
wild boondoggle. In fact, it’s a sensible, fair proposal that would
greatly help the city while not in any way stealing money from schools,
roads or other essential city services.

I make that last point
because I’ve heard charges of the opposite from some readers and social
media critics who are portraying the stadium as another example of
misplaced priorities, or a corporate giveaway that could hurt other city
services. That’s simply not the case.

2 comments:

The promoter wants a significant up-front investment of government funds.

The promoter is activity cultivating elected officials to fund his activities through above board activities such as campaign donations and who knows what else. (come on, a zionsville state rep thinking that Indianapolis needs a soccer stadium to complete a set of tax-payer funded sport palaces, really).

The likelihood of a minor sports league surviving more than a few years is pretty low, looking at the examples of arena football, the AFL (arena), XFL, WFL, L, the WNBA, etc. Since 1990, the following soccer leagues have gone defunct or been forced to restructure (shrink) including Major Soccer League, Major Indoor Soccer League, USL first division, USL second division, USSF Division 2 Professional league, World Indoor Soccer League, and Xtreme Soccer league. All of these failures were only viable with mass infusions of cash, they were all money losers.

Matt Tully is either completely dishonest or he should not be trusted to manage his own check book, as he is either incapable of doing any sort of financial analysis or being will to consider such things.

The only good thing that may occur with this boondoggle is a federal investigation of the corruption of our elected officials. I am not holding my breathe.

About Me

I have been an attorney since the Fall of 1987. I have worked in every branch of government, including a stint as a Deputy Attorney General, a clerk for a judge on the Indiana Court of Appeals, and I have worked three sessions at the Indiana State Senate.
During my time as a lawyer, I have worked not only in various government positions, but also in private practice as a trial attorney handing an assortment of mostly civil cases.
I have also been politically active and run this blog in an effort to add my voice to those calling for reform.